is full of the eeriest, queerest sounds that
ever a man's ears harkened to. And the sounds come not so much from
the birds, or the soughing of the branches; they seem to come from the
swamp life underneath the branches, at the roots of trees. There's
a ceaseless stir as of a myriad of reptiles creeping in the slime.
Listen long enough and you will fancy that you hear the whirr and rush
of innumerable crabs, the flapping of innumerable fish. Now and again
a more distinctive sound emerges from the rest--the croaking of a
bull-frog, the whining cough of a crocodile. At such sounds Hatteras
would start up in his chair and cock his head like a dog in a room
that hears another dog barking in the street.

"Doesn't it sound damned wicked?" he said, with a queer smile of
enjoyment.

Walker did not answer. The light from a lamp in the room behind them
struck obliquely upon Hatteras' face and slanted off from it in a
narrowing column until it vanished in a yellow thread among the leaves
of the trees. It showed that the same enjoyment which ran in Hatteras'
voice was alive upon his face. His eyes, his ears, were alert, and he
gently opened and shut his mouth with a little clicking of the teeth.
In some horrible way he seemed to have something in common with, he
appeared almost to participate in, the activity of the swamp. Thus,
had Walker often seen him sit, but never with the light so clear upon
his face, and the sight gave to him a quite new impression of his
friend. He wondered whether all these months his judgment had been
wrong. And out of that wonder a new thought sprang into his mind.

"Dick," he said, "this house of mine stands between your house and
the forest. It stands on the borders of the trees, on the edge of the
swamp. Is that why you always prefer it to your own?"

Hatteras turned his head quickly towards his companion, almost
suspiciously. Then he looked back into the darkness, and after a
little he said:--

"It's not only the things you care about, old man, which tug at you,
it's the things you hate as well. I hate this country. I hate these
miles and miles of mangroves, and yet I am fascinated. I can't get the
forest and the undergrowth out of my mind. I dream of them at nights.
I dream that I am sinking into that black oily batter of mud. Listen,"
and he suddenly broke off with his head stretched forwards. "Doesn't
it sound wicked?"

"But all this talk about London?" cried Walker.

"Oh, don't you under